The Bifrost Cable System has officially achieved Ready for Service (RFS) status and will begin commercial traffic in the coming weeks. It’s not just another cable: it is the world’s first submarine system that directly connects Singapore to the West Coast of the United States via Indonesia — crossing the Java Sea and< strongly> Celebes Sea, with a length exceeding 20,000 km, a round-trip latency of less than 165 ms between Singapore and the U.S. (up to 10 ms less than many existing systems), and over 260 Tb/s of additional capacity for one of the world’s most active digital corridors.
For Keppel Ltd., the project promoter, Bifrost is a strategic piece in their connectivity platform and a qualitative leap for Singapore as a regional digital hub. “This project strengthens digital connectivity between Southeast Asia and the United States, supporting the growth of the regional digital economy,” emphasized Manjot Singh Mann, Keppel’s Head of Connectivity. The company has been awarded 5 out of 12 fiber pairs of the system, in a 40-60 co-ownership scheme with private fund co-investors through a joint venture.
A new highway on a new route: less latency, more resilience
Bifrost does not reuse saturated corridors between Asia and America; it charts an alternative route across the Pacific that diversifies failure points and enhances regional redundancy. This routing engineering enables reducing latency —< 165 ms Singapore-U.S.—, a critical indicator for AI workloads, cloud-native platforms, and real-time digital services (ranging from low-latency streaming to electronic financial markets or online gaming). In a world connecting data centers on a hyperregional scale, 10 ms less in a transoceanic hop makes a noticeable difference in user experience and operational efficiency of distributed applications.
Furthermore, the over 260 Tb/s of aggregated capacity provide oxygen to an increasingly demanding Pacific, driven by the rise of foundational models, distributed training, edge inference, and massive regional data replication for resilience and compliance.
Where Bifrost lands (and why it matters)
The system expands the interconnection map with landing points in Singapore, Guam, and Grover Beach (California), as well as branching units extending connectivity to Yakarta and Manado (Indonesia), Dávao (Philippines), and Winema (Oregon). This geography allows for dynamic traffic steering, bringing the cable closer to key Southeast Asian markets and multiplying terrestrial backhaul options to data centers and neutral points in each country.
In Philippines, the operator Converge ICT will act as landing party in Dávao. Its CEO, Dennis Anthony Uy, summarized the impact dualistically: for Converge, it means more international bandwidth; for Philippines, redundancy and route diversity to support their digital transformation. Industry-wise, this physical diversity translates into less risk correlation against fortuitous outages, route failures, or geopolitical incidents.
The construction was carried out by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN). Their CEO, Alain Biston, highlighted the joint effort with Keppel and partners in bringing the project to the RFS stage, a milestone achieved after extensive spooling campaigns across the Pacific and Southeast Asia and system tests verifying power, repeaters, submarine ROADM, and terminal equipment.
Technical and business: fiber pairs, spectrum, and capacity sharing
Bifrost has 12 fiber pairs. Keppel and co-investors hold 5 pairs under a 40-60 JV; the remaining pairs are leased to other tenants and wholesale clients on a capacity basis (spectrum or wavelength channels). This model allows hyper-scalers, operators, and large OTTs to buy unlimited capacity per pair or share spectrum, and to scale with amplifiers and advanced coastal terminals to maximize bandwidth per pair.
For cloud operators, a dark fiber pair functions as an exclusive lane connecting cloud regions with their own optics and encryption; for telcos, a spectrum contract reduces initial CAPEX and accelerates time-to-market with 400/800G waves and burn management managed by the consortium.
Why is this cable relevant to the AI wave?
Three key reasons, all converging:
- Lower latency. Inferences and real-time applications (enterprise copilots, interactive analytics, algorithmic trading) benefit from shorter jumps. Distributed training, checkpoints, and synchronizations (all-reduce, parameter servers) experience less lag.
- Massive capacity. The 260 Tb/s boost alleviates trans-Pacific traffic, where dataset replication and incremental snapshot transfer for DR/BCP (disaster recovery/business continuity) are now regulatory and operational requirements.
- Diverse routes. The routing engineering — with branches toward Indonesia and Philippines, and two US landings (California and Oregon) — distributes risk and increases availability. Critical for achieving SLA five nines in global services.
Singapore reinforces its role as a digital hub
With Bifrost, Singapore expands its role as a key point for international submarine cables and data center hub. For Keppel, which operates an ecosystem extending beyond capital investments — including infrastructure, real estate, and connectivity services — the cable is a lever for value creation for cloud and tech clients. The company has already announced plans to expand its submarine footprint in Asia and beyond, as a partner among the major cloud players.
At the same time, Southeast Asia — driven by demographics, digital penetration, and high-value manufacturing — demands more backbones to complement (or sometimes avoid) the usual hubs. Bifrost adds lanes and new exits in a funnel where congestion could become a risk with the surge in traffic driven by generative AI, 4K/8K video, and digital services.
Guam, Indonesia, and Philippines: more than points on a map
- Guam is a classic component of the transpacific topology: its location enables interconnection with other systems and route optimization toward North America or Northeast Asia.
- Yakarta and Manado integrate Indonesia — the world’s fourth most populous country — into the backbone, with direct benefits for their cloud ecosystems, digital economy, and AI rollout in sectors like finance, retail, and logistics.
- Dávao provides additional redundancy outside the usual Luzon hubs, increasing capacity for local operators and OTT providers.
- Grover Beach (California) and Winema (Oregon) open two gateways into the U.S. backbone, supporting diverse backhaul options toward Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Portland, and the Northern California data center clusters.
This multi-head topology enhances resilience: multiple routes, multiple landings, and submarine ROADM capable of traffic reconfiguration during incidents or maintenance.
What’s next? From RFS to live traffic
The RFS status marks the end of system testing and the start of commercial operation. Over the next few weeks, wholesale clients and tenants will begin lighting up their wavelengths and migrating flows from existing cables. Simultaneously, IP transit engineers will adjust routing policies to maximize the advantages of Bifrost (latency and capacity), while content and cloud providers recalibrate their regional interconnection architecture.
For ASN, this milestone validates technology and execution in an environment where next-generation systems demand more power per span, more efficient repeaters, and broad-spectrum optical components (C+L) ready for terabits per fiber.
Implications for companies and clouds
- Less jitter and reduced RTT for critical flows between Asia and the U.S. (e.g., database synchronization, cross-region microservices, all-reduce in distributed training).
- More margin for multi-region active-active setups and disaster recovery based on continuous replication.
- Alternative routes with differentiated SLA parameters (latency vs. cost), leveraging the Indonesian/Philippine branch for local services.
- Improved user experience in streaming, cloud gaming, and real-time collaboration.
In sum: a new, faster lane bridging two shores that exchange increasing amounts of data every month.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the latency of the Bifrost Singapore-U.S. cable, and how does it improve upon existing systems?
Bifrost provides a RTT below 165 ms between Singapore and California, up to 10 ms less than many current systems, thanks to its new route via Indonesia. This reduction is significant for AI, distributed cloud, and real-time services.
How much total capacity does Bifrost add, and how is it allocated?
The system adds over 260 Tb/s of extra capacity across the transpacific corridor. It features 12 fiber pairs; Keppel and co-investors control 5 pairs through a 40-60 JV. The remaining pairs are leased out to operators, hyperscalers, and OTT providers on a dark fiber, spectrum, or wavelength basis.
What are Bifrost’s main landing points and branches?
Primary landings are in Singapore, Guam, and Grover Beach (California), with branches to Yakarta and Manado (Indonesia), Dávao (Philippines), and Winema (Oregon). This topology improves resilience and supports dynamic regional routing.
How will Bifrost benefit Southeast Asia’s digital economy?
It offers lower latency, massive capacity, and diverse routes for AI, cloud-native applications, finance, manufacturing, and public services. Countries like Indonesia and Philippines gain redundancy and robust international connectivity, accelerating their digital transformation.
via: keppel and submarine networks